olympics

I grew up playing soccer and over the past few years, Sachi and I have become bigger fans than ever, especially for our hometown Seattle Sounders. The rules of soccer came pretty easily to Sachi who didn't play as a youngster - with one huge exception: the offsides rule. I tried to point it out at matches, explain the idea, etc. Eventually, visuals did the trick and now she's the one throwing her arms in the air.
Indeed, the offsides rule has a serious, worldwide explanation problem. It's... Continue Reading

To finish up China week, I'd like to share some of our favorite photos from China. Enjoy the Olympics!
Shanghai from the Pearl City Tower
A squished pig from a Nanjing market.
Summer Palace
Locks on Yellow Mountain. You might remember these from The Amazing Race.
Li River, near Yangshou, China
Li River Karsts, via Guilin, China.
It was a sunny day in Shanghai. The umbrellas (parasoles?) were to block the sun.
Yangtze River - Three... Continue Reading

Below is a short story that was posted to our travel blog from Shanghai. Almost any visitor to China is likely to experience a higher-than-expected level of competiion while standing in line for something like a subway ticket. In the case below, I had made up my mind to be a competitor. Unfortunately things didn't work out as planned.
From the post: Lessons in Line Breaking
I had made a decision and I was going to act on it. Gone were the days of standing passively in line while... Continue Reading

If making signs in Chinese characters was my job, I would be very, very bad at it. However, I might hire someone who knows the language well before erecting a permanent sign at a major tourist destination. For a long time, this didn't happen in China and we snapped the photos below before they invested in changing the signs for the Olympics.
The guy in this photo is one of the most interesting people I've ever met. He's the blind adventurer Miles Hilton-Barber.(notice the broken cane,... Continue Reading

In honor of the start of the Beijing Olympics, we've decided to make it "China Week" here on the Common Craft blog.
In a lot of ways, China was where we first started to experiment with video. We bought our first video camera (a Sony DCR - PC 1000) in Hong Kong, just before spending about a month in mainland China in 2006. Over the time in China, we edited and posted our first "real" videos. This week, we'll share a few of those videos and some stories from our time there. It's stuff you... Continue Reading